Thoughts of a Common Man

The calendar is a strange thing isn't it? We normally flip it from one month to another without too much thought, but man, when December is turning to January there are so many plans to be made. It's like we get a clean slate to work with, and there aren't too many among us who believes that it will just be the same old crap. I'm not going to swear once in 2010. I'm going to eat right, drink less, and lose weight. I'm going to be kind to my family, dedicated in my work, and content in the decisions of others. I'm not going to miss mass even once this year. I'm going to help more around the house, change the oil every three thousand miles, and clean up that damn storage room. And then... Three days into it, we may be doing okay. Crossing everything off the to-do-lists, still eating celery, and swearing that our stomach shrunk. And then... "F&*@ it!" we scream knowing that we weren't going to hold it in any longer, and with swearing alrea...

Reading about the alleged terrorist attack and realizing that I've been standing on a slippery slope all year, I have one freaking wish for '10 - I want hope back. That isn't too much to ask for, right? I don't want to continue feeling that everything is crap. I don't want to feel like I can't pray for something (a habit the nuns beat into me) because now it won't come true. I want to be able to think about wanting to write something new that is completely filled with the daydreaming of the past. Writing the non-fiction stuff absolutely blows. Hope - I hope this comes true or that comes to be. I hope that I can dream free of worry. Well if dreams came true, ah wouldn't that be nice. This ain't no dream we're living through tonight. Did you see Bruce on the Kennedy Honors? When they were singing his songs you could almost here him thinking, 'Ah, crap they're screwing it up.' And Melissa Ethridge has been through a lot, but she looked l...

They say that being prejudiced is lumping together one group of people and making assumptions about them as if they were all one in the same. If that's the case, I'm prejudiced. I hate television weathermen and weather women. I think of this today because it took me an hour and a half to travel 18 miles this afternoon. Now, of course, blaming the snow on the weatherman is a little short-sighted, but those unfunny bastards take credit when the sun shines, don't they? Perhaps it's their banter I hate most of all - they pretend that they were behind the sun shining bright and if it does happen to snow or rain then they say - "Well don't blame me! Ha-ha, hee-hee." Yet they also tell me how smart they are when they are tracking a system with all of their sophisticated radar and such - and yet - not one of them saw my drive-time hell coming. Why is that oh wise one? My hatred for weathermen also comes from my troubled youth when my grandmother absolutely had to ...

My kids have snuggies. Isn't that wonderful? Now they can sit around the house assured of their warmth. Not that I'm against them being comfortable, but it is getting a tad ridiculous now, isn't it? You see each morning I'm out of bed nice and early. Yet I have little trouble waking the kids as they are usually camped out in front of ESPN before I even hit the stairs. The problem, of course, is that they have not done much more than stumble from their beds to the couch. The dogs are begging to go out, and be fed. The coffee cup or drink glasses are scattered all around. "We need to get them moving," I tell Kathy. Being that Kathy takes a bit of time to get acclimated to a new day, she sort of shrugs me off. And now she bought them freaking snuggies - I'm fighting a losing battle here! But they look comfortable, don't they? It might be something that would make my nightly visits with Judge Judy more enjoyable,wouldn't it? Yeah, yeah, Pops, I know - ...

A couple of my nieces on my wife's side got engaged for Christmas. They are certainly reasonable young women with a lot going for them, but it was pretty funny hearing them talk about the future as if they were entering Candyland with sweets falling from the trees. Of course, I was there to help talk their husbands-to-be through the upcoming days. "Do you like dish-pan hands?" I asked one groom to be. He just sort of shrugged. "All the things you used to love are soon to be memories." "Oh no," the clueless bastard explained. "We do our own thing and we respect each other's need to break free every now and then." I couldn't stop laughing. "Have you considered how it will be when you're sleep-depraved, chasing kids around, and cleaning the house ten minutes before the Super Bowl is starting?" "We've talked it all through," he said. "We have a plan to keep everything interesting. We get along great."...

It's so easy to lament what is lost. It's so simple just to chase your tail, and upon catching it realize that there's nothing you wanted to do with it anyway. A couple of years ago my Christmas post was the words - God Gave Me Everything I want - and it sort of haunted me today as the kids ripped away at their presents, hoping that the next one was the one they really wanted. Of course, there were smiles all around, and it does my heart good to know that they're safe, secure and relatively happy. It's our solemn vow that they remain in that frame of mind, but the cloud in our hearts this year can certainly block out the sun on certain days. So...time to count the old blessings, right? A great family - to my beautiful wife and equally beautiful kids - so much to thank each other for - day in and day out - a prayer that its never forgotten - not even in the darkest minutes. Brothers, sisters, mother and father - in-laws, out-laws and dogs as my nieces and nephews. We...

So Christmas '09 is upon us. A year that sucked from the first month and continued to suck all the way, at least personally. Cheetah Woods had a better year than me, my family and most of our friends. Today is the day we Look Up and Cheer Up! As I was writing the story of Jeff over the last few months, I was struck by a memory of a night gone by. We were drinking beer (believe it or not) at my parents home. We had made the evening interesting by betting beers on one thing or another, and there were plenty of laughs with good friends and family. I believe that the gathering was a going away party of sorts for Carrie as she left for law school. Anyhow, the end of the clear summer night found Jeff and I outside doing what needs to be done as beer makes its way through the system. We just happened to arrive at the door at the same time. "Hang on a minute," Jeff said. He sort of spun me around and pointed skyward. All of the stars were out and since it was such a clear night t...